Links: 3dClearEarth, Cambridge mobile pollution sensor web

3D building maker: Dutch company 3dClearEarth is guessing your business may want to have a 3D rendition of its headquarters built as Collada-based KML, ready for inclusion in Google Earth. Packages start at ‚Ç¨300 for one building and go up past ‚Ç¨1,500 for a complex. The sample buildings are very detailed, so for a medium- to large business wanting to make sure that they’re spot on Google Earth is “covered”, this could be the ticket.

If you read Dutch, local paper Eindhovens Dagbladhas an article on the company. Just like everyone else, they need to submit their models to 3D Warehouse, so there is a delay before they show up on the base layer.

I hadn’t seen pricing on Collada models before — I imagine the barriers to entry in this business are not that high, though one constraint would be the availability of high quality photography of the buildings to be modeled, which would need to be obtained locally if not already available.

Mobile pollution sensor web:New Scientist reports that in Cambridge (UK), computer scientists have cobbled together a cheap mobile pollution sensor web using bicycle couriers, GPS devices, smartphones and phone-sized pollution sensors that record carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, and nitrogen dioxide levels. The devices all talk via bluetooth, and then the phone send the georeferenced data live to a server as the courier cycles about town.

I’d love to try this out in Cairo, though I suspect the pollution sensor would probably just get clogged — if you haven’t been to Cairo, you don’t know the meaning of the word pollution:-) (Via Daily Wireless and Jon (thanks!))

Highlighting flight paths: Another great bit of innovative KML authoring on Barnabu.co.uk: Flight paths between UK and Irish cities that become visible for each city as you hover its icon. Let’s hope Barnabu’s James Stafford gets to sell this wonderful visualization idea to RyanAir for lots of money — or at least lots of free tickets:-)

I don’t know about Cairo – but I’ve been to Beijing and think it would contend with defining air pollution.

And you’re right about the sensors – I investigated building one to take around China and there are definitely different requirements when you have comparatively large particulates in the air in dirty cities as compared to relatively clean cities.